Eel Farm Poem by Fiona Wright

For Jane


To her, they never slithered -
rather a rustling, the stiff
texture of their mystery
still dark and truffled
on her tongue. They hung,

mummified limbs twisting
from the smokehouse ceiling,
their mean eyes bulbous in surprise
as the walnut skin
contracted from their sockets.

She kept the wood fire burning,
felt the hiss and cracked static
across her face, her own flesh
growing heavy on its flavour.

Test Cricket crackled
by the dam, she'd watch her uncle sit
suspended like his fishing lines
between the brackish water
and old newspapers: the hours of waiting
for the thin rustle
of their harvest.